Clutch Click! Driving Me Mad!

[Owens]

I got a free MOT for moaning at the dealer. They put my bad treatment down to a new sales person not having the experience. In my book that was another excuse. 

I'm a bit of a tech'y and research before buying. As soon as someone starts the Bull my radar starts twitching. Better for people to say they don't know rather than spout a load of B$%)cks. 

[RapidRonnie]

Rang the service manager at my Skoda dealership today (Blsde Group, Gloucester - from whom I bought my Citigo in October last year) to say I had the dreaded clutch click (and to a lesser extent a click on the brake pedal) and he very quickly told me that Skoda had issued them with a directive, to not attend to the problem (replace/repair) as it was a recognised issue that was under investigation.

 

That sounds fair enough to me if it's true that Skoda are looking for a proper answer, no point wasting money and time replacing bits if it's not a long term cure.

 

My mum's Citigo doesn't do this, but the courtesy car I have today does.

 

Couple of other observations:

 

- The non-remote central locking is silent, how do they do that? You think the doors can't be locked but they are!

 

- Ride quality is brilliant, I drove into some potholes on purpose (at slow speed) and it coped really well.

[mac11irl]

Resurrecting this thread, as i noticed something this evening...

I was out testing the wife's citigo earlier this evening as it had developed a rattle.

 

while doing some very low revs stuff to see if could source the noise, or figure out where its coming from.

(I think i know, but have to look underneath tomorrow....)

 

so, i was parking up outside our house on a gentle incline, and was just holding the car stationary on the clutch bite.

letting it in and rolling back a tad then pulling it up the slope on the idle to get the rattle going if i could.

just as the clutch is on the biting point, if no throttle or hand brake is on, there is a "Click" , but its very faint, didnt even noticed at first.

and it is followed by a very faint, high pitch tone - electronic beep type, like the handbrake tone, but higher pitched and barely audible.

the tone stops when you start moving, or dip the clutch again.

 

our Lexi doesnt have stop start, or anything, but this almost seems like something is wired in there by standard for hill start assist maybe?

could this switch be the source of The Click????? 

[Stormchaser]

I got hill hold but haven't noticed any noise though. Just this annoying clunk when the release bearing hits the clutch. Very audible on every gear change. I've reported on its first service in 2 weeks.

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[mac11irl]

the tone is very high pitched, - like at the level of those things some shops have for stopping kids hanging around ,

adults not meant to be able to hear it..... but i always can, and its quite low volume

same with those F-ing plug in ultrasonic pest repellant do-hickies... had them in our office for a while, i had to keep turning them off,

as they were driving me mad... noone else could hear it!!!

[Liam2]

I remember reading about the dreaded clutch click and thinking "well my car's OK", but then it happened to me, and it really is the peskiest most niggly thing in the world whilst you're driving. It's hard to explain to anyone who's never experienced it but you end up dreading changing gear in anticipation of hearing and FEELING that click. In the end I just fiddled about operating the clutch both pumping it and jiggling it near to the click (if that makes sense) and the problem went away and hasn't reappeared in several thousand miles of motoring.

Thank you very much. Just got this problem, seems like metal to metal click just as clutch pedal was completely released. Comes across to me as if a rubber buffer was missing. I reported it to garage who couldn't determine what the cause was from operating the pedal. Car is due service on Monday next. Chief mechanic says panel above pedal will have to come off for closer examination.

Just tried your suggestion and bingo seems to be sorted, for now anyway. I will report back if it fails again. If it doesn't before car goes in I will get them to hold off, but just to keep a record for future warranty service if necessary. Don't like panels being removed.....always afraid of creaks or vibrations afterwards.

What I found was that pressing the pedal with my hand and keeping pressure towards the centre of the car allowed me to feel a nice rubbery parking of the pedal, just as I would expect. Doing that and wiggling it did not resolve the click though. On the contrary though pushing and wiggling my foot on the left side of the pedal and keeping pressure towards the drivers door side seems to have worked.

Thanks again.

[mac11irl]

I got hill hold but haven't noticed any noise though. Just this annoying clunk when the release bearing hits the clutch. Very audible on every gear change. I've reported on its first service in 2 weeks.

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Thank you very much. Just got this problem, seems like metal to metal click just as clutch pedal was completely released. Comes across to me as if a rubber buffer was missing. I reported it to garage who couldn't determine what the cause was from operating the pedal. Car is due service on Monday next. Chief mechanic says panel above pedal will have to come off for closer examination.

Just tried your suggestion and bingo seems to be sorted, for now anyway. I will report back if it fails again. If it doesn't before car goes in I will get them to hold off, but just to keep a record for future warranty service if necessary. Don't like panels being removed.....always afraid of creaks or vibrations afterwards.

What I found was that pressing the pedal with my hand and keeping pressure towards the centre of the car allowed me to feel a nice rubbery parking of the pedal, just as I would expect. Doing that and wiggling it did not resolve the click though. On the contrary though pushing and wiggling my foot on the left side of the pedal and keeping pressure towards the drivers door side seems to have worked.

Thanks again.

 

So... turns out there is Hill hold on swmbo's citigo! it only seems to apply for about 3seconds, only copped it last week after 4months ownership. the high pitch beep i mentioned in last post is actually it engaging, along with a very soft click. thinking now that the "Clutch Click" could be that switch, maybe not the actual clutch? perhaps theres a batch of crap switches that got used. probably fitted on all models, just not coded in on models without? it could be worth asking about

[stooz]

I have hill hold, but there is no beep ?

[Stormchaser]

Hill hold doesn't have a beep.

[mac11irl]

Its not so much a beep, really. its more like them anti - anti social behaviour thingys shops have to stop kids hanging around,

or, like i said in a previous post, those U/Sonic pest control things, which i can also hear when they are turned on.......

just a very high frequency tone.....

[59Hopper]

Both my own car and my friends Citigo have this high pitched noise during Hill-Hold.

 

I'm hoping that as I get older and my hearing get worse the sound will go away haha

 

It's not really loud/annoying as such though but you can deifnately hear it.

[mac11irl]

Both my own car and my friends Citigo have this high pitched noise during Hill-Hold.

 

I'm hoping that as I get older and my hearing get worse the sound will go away haha

 

It's not really loud/annoying as such though but you can deifnately hear it.

 

Thank God, I was starting to think i was the only one who hear it!!!

[stooz]

Is this click very loud? I have a noise on fast clutching gear changes, but not on smooth slow release. But I am more than happy to put it down to the engagement of clutch plates or gearbox engagement or some such.

 

More obvious in a citigo due to the complete lack of sound proofing in the engine bay etc, but I have always been aware of a clicky noise on clutches on all cars when you get the door wide open or get the partner to maneuver on the drive for example. eg - remove the sound proofing effect of the cabin!

 

Or are we talking about a much larger louder click?

[jenson10]

Hello, I have had the clutch pedal click on my citigo sport after about 3000 miles, took it back to Skoda at about 5000 miles and they put a new pedal and crash bar in? the clicking has gone (for now), there has always been a metallic clutch sound on release in 1st and 2nd sometimes 3rd, but I heard the car from outside when a valet parking person bought me my car back in a underground car park, it sound like somebody had left a bag of spanners in the gearbox, also had intermittent issues with getting it in reverse, on four occasions having to push the car of the driveway because it just will not go in.  So I took a technician from Skoda out for a drive yesterday, he agreed it did not sound right, and I thought they were going to take the box out of the car and look at the clutch as well, but I have just had a phone call to say their master tech has just driven the car, they cannot find issue with reverse and the metallic sounds are normal for that gearbox as they have had contact with skoda technical so they will not do anything about it.  I am not really impressed , my 5 month old 7200 mile car sounds like a bag of spanners being rattled between gearshifts and its normal? my 280000 mile octavia vrs does not rattle like that, I am very disappointed in skoda, which I will convey when I go to pick the Citigo up, but what do I do now, I cannot see that sort of metallic noise being healthy, but I am now a bit stuck of what to do now. So not happy right now.   

[Stormchaser]

I don't have the clutch click after 14K but I do have the gearshift noise. I was told the same also that it's normal. They've recorded it but SUK won't do anything about it. I'll just live with it until it progresses.

[jenson10]

When i was buying the car Skoda has said "well they are great cars, but the noise's from the gearbox are a bit questionable" I would not have bought it, I got this as a replacement for my smart car, so its a town car that I am driving round London in, the noises are not right and are annoying to say the least, maybe I should have got another smart car.

[Stormchaser]

I agree they're annoying but there's nothing they will do about it yet. It's also reported on the UP forum too and no doubt the Seat Mii suffers too.

[g6zru]

I agree they're annoying but there's nothing they will do about it yet. It's also reported on the UP forum too and no doubt the Seat Mii suffers too.

I can confirm that it is also on the Mii. My wife's car is going in next week for assessment but I'm not expecting any positive results, but will advise the result.

 

Fred

[CortinaGT]

All the pedals are made of plastic aren't they?

No wonder owners are suffering with this.

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I wouldn't be surpised if we discovered quite a lot of cars now have plastic pedals.  The following is from the BBC website on 5 February 2014:

 

"Aston Martin is recalling more than 17,000 cars because of a potentially defective part.

The Warwickshire-based luxury car maker said the recall accounted for most of its sports cars built since late 2007.

It follows the discovery that a Chinese sub-supplier was allegedly using counterfeit plastic material in part of the accelerator pedal.

There are fears the pedal arm may break although there have been no reports of any accidents, the firm said.

A spokesman said it would now bring manufacture of the pedal arm back to the UK.

 

'Get it replaced'

The firm is recalling a total of 17,590 cars - 1,553 in the UK - including all of its left-hand-drive models built since November 2007 and all right-hand-drive models built since May 2012, affecting about 75% of all cars built in those periods.

The recall applies to all cars apart from the new Vanquish coupe and Volante models.

"Customer safety is very important and to change the pedal takes less than an hour, so take the car and get it replaced is what we're saying," the spokesman said.

"It's very important to say that there have not been any incidents or accidents.""

 

BTW - my clutch pedal clicks too and I realise that I have changed my action of the pedal by reducing the speed of release whilst passing the 'click' point.   It reduces the sound a bit,

 

[Liam2]

Thank you very much. Just got this problem, seems like metal to metal click just as clutch pedal was completely released. Comes across to me as if a rubber buffer was missing. I reported it to garage who couldn't determine what the cause was from operating the pedal. Car is due service on Monday next. Chief mechanic says panel above pedal will have to come off for closer examination.

Just tried your suggestion and bingo seems to be sorted, for now anyway. I will report back if it fails again. If it doesn't before car goes in I will get them to hold off, but just to keep a record for future warranty service if necessary. Don't like panels being removed.....always afraid of creaks or vibrations afterwards.

What I found was that pressing the pedal with my hand and keeping pressure towards the centre of the car allowed me to feel a nice rubbery parking of the pedal, just as I would expect. Doing that and wiggling it did not resolve the click though. On the contrary though pushing and wiggling my foot on the left side of the pedal and keeping pressure towards the drivers door side seems to have worked.

Thanks again.

Just an update. After service and a follow up visit the click was back each time when the car was returned. The cure above worked each time for me, and it doesn't return while I am the driver. It seems a different style of clutch depress causes a relapse. Garage confirms Skoda are aware of the issue, but no fix is identified and therefor garage do not have ok to investigate. It has been noted in my garage record in case it becomes a persistent problem to me, or if the fix becomes available out of warranty.

[John Aberdeen]

My citigo developed clutch click after approx 3 month/1000 miles. Took it to dealer and got usual known characteristic / no fix explanation. Lodged compliant via skoda customer services immediately. While on phone to them they could hear the noise as I changed gear. Explained that this was an inherent fault of car, not an inherent characteristic. They arranged a change of clutch via dealer and no probs thereafter. Good response from Skoda. I advised them of this forum and they read this topic. If you have clutch click you should not and must not accept that as being acceptable.

[mac11irl]

Sounds like a win... and if SUK's attitude is being changed about this, its good news going forward...

maybe theyve realised that pedal issue mentioned above (Jag iirc) might be a same supplier of parts bin bits....

[Stormchaser]

That's good to know. I hope they treat all cases like this.

[MikeWales]

Sad to say that our Citigo also suffers from the very annoying clutch click which get much worse over a long journey.

 

It went into Sinclair Swansea last Saturday for its first service, with the clutch click as one of two items on the 'to do' list, the other was a bump/.creak from the n/s rear wheel over bumps.

 

We were issued with Skoda UK's statement:-

 

These noises are due to the design of the power unit and are in accordance with the state-of-the-art of the production

No damage can be caused to any vehicle components due to these noises.

If you deal with this complaint, do not carry out any repairs.

Replacement of parts is without effect. Please inform the customer about the cause of the noises he is complaining about and also that the complaint is not justified.

 

I think Skoda UK need to understand that other cars, some cheaper and also more expensive with 'state-of-the-art production do not suffer such noises. The noise is loud and annoying, which does spoil my journey either as a driver or passenger.

 

Certainly if I drove this car regularly, I would be unable to put up with the noise and if there was no joy from Skoda UK, it would be up for sale.

 

This of course now brings into question my loyalty to Skoda as a brand. I have a Yeti which is great. We bought the Citigo on the strength of my Yeti experience. It will be 3 years old in December and up until last Saturday I was of course  going to swap it for another Yeti. This will most definitely not now be the case.

 

Now the new Nissan Cashcow has regrettably gone to the top of my list. 

[masserator]

did they resolve the creak from the suspention? did they give an indication as to what it was? mine has started to rattle/creak in the last couple of weeks but not booked it in yet